When 'The Lion King' roars into town, graduate of Cleveland acting program will take on the tricky role (and puppet) of Zazu

Don’t underestimate Mr. Banana Beak. At 6 pounds, about the weight of a newborn baby, he’s quite the beast. Taming him isn’t easy, but what would you expect from the excitable, brainy Tockus erythrorhynchus?

“It’s the most complicated puppet in the show — and there are a lotta puppets in that show,” says Andrew Gorell, the intrepid actor taking on the ambidextrous challenge that is Zazu, an African red-billed hornbill and one of the stars of “The Lion King,” which stampedes into PlayhouseSquare Tuesday.

Preview

The Lion King

What: The U.S. Bank Star Performance Series at PlayhouseSquare presents the touring production of the Disney Broadway musical. Music by Elton John, lyrics by Tim Rice, book by Roger Allers and Irene Mecchi. Directed by Julie Taymor. Puppet design by Taymor and Michael Curry.

Gorell, a 2012 graduate of the Case Western Reserve University/Cleveland Play House MFA Acting Program, isn’t being hyperbolic. Broadway’s highest-grossing musical of all time ($970 million and counting) boasts about 230 puppets, and everyone agrees that Zazu, a technological wonder filled with minute gears and levers and outfitted with a junior Slinky for a neck, is a pain in the tail feathers for the human being tasked with animating him.

A sock puppet he is not, says Deborah Shrimpton, resident director of the touring production of “The Lion King.” You can’t just jam it onto your hand and make like Mr. Rogers.

“Walking and chewing gum doesn’t even get close” to describing what it takes to make him come alive, she says.

How about walking, chewing gum and juggling fire while speaking French? Closer, Shrimpton allows. (And she should know: She’s been with the show, in some capacity, for 11 years in three countries and two languages).

“We don’t want a floppy, dead-eyed-looking puppet,” seconds Michael Reilly, who has been on the road as “Lion King’s” puppet master for the last six years. He and two assistants are in charge of making sure all of Zazu’s 1,500 nylon feathers are painted and in place. “We need that puppet to breathe, and that’s where Andrew comes in.”

Though Zazu isn’t particularly heavy, he must be manipulated with both hands. “Without going too technically into it,” Gorell says, “there are about seven or eight mechanisms that control the puppet — everything from the wings to the eyes to the mouth to the neck.”

Simple, no? Uh, no.

Doing exercises to work the puppet

“The first day I got that puppet, I picked him up, and after about three minutes, my hand was starting to shake,” Gorell says. “I couldn’t take it. My wrist was completely at a 90-degree angle. There are these muscles [in your arms and your hands] that you just don’t use, and they’re small, and they fatigue very easily. I thought, ‘Oh my God, what am I gonna do?’ ”

The creative team suggested some articulation exercises for his fingers, and the next day, he was able to hold Zazu for five minutes. The day after that, for eight, then 12 . . .

Two weeks into basic “Lion King” training in Tulsa, Okla., he was rehearsing in the mirror, the only way Gorell can see Zazu’s face and whether all his complicated little finger movements are causing his scene partner to blink every few seconds — just as we do — and squawk and flap those stubby wings.

The idea, Gorell says, is to “become one with the puppet, so that we really share the same brain. Repetition is the key, so I find going in every day to spend some time with him is key. It’s like shooting free throws in an empty gym. I don’t always know how it’s going to translate onstage, but the more work I do, the more confident I am that he and I will be as one when we step out onstage.”

Once under the lights at the State Theatre, where he will debut as Zazu, the 37-year-old actor will have had about five weeks to perfect the character and make it his own. “It was what I’d considered out of my league — a big Broadway musical wasn’t what I’d expected to be going out for when I left school a year ago. . . This is really the big break in New York.”

It’s a tall order for anyone to step into a well-known role in a show with as much mileage as “The Lion King,” which premiered on Broadway in November 1997. The musical, based on the hugely popular 1994 Disney animated classic, swept the 1998 Tonys like a savanna brushfire, winning six awards including best musical and two trophies for Julie Taymor — one for her direction (the first woman ever to win in that category), the other for costumes.

If you are one of the last people on Earth to have missed both the film and its celebrated translation to the stage, a quick synopsis:

Lion cub Simba — son of Mufasa, the majestic king of the jungle — grows up cavorting in the African heartland until a tragedy forces him to run away. (Hint: Think “Hamlet.”) Of course, this being Disney, unlike the dour Dane, Prince Simba ultimately returns to take his rightful place in the hierarchy of the animal kingdom.

Zazu is Mufasa’s trusted adviser, whom the young Simba loves to torment. As part of his costume, Gorell will wear a bowler hat as if he were Charlie Chaplin or an English butler on his way to town. (In the movie, the proper, dignified but easily rattled Zazu is voiced by British comedian Rowan Atkinson.)

Before there was “Warhorse,” Julie Taymor’s groundbreaking costume and puppet design integrated the human and the animal in what she calls the “double” or “dual” event, never attempting to hide the actor as one would in a traditional puppet show. As a result, Gorell must also move in an especially avian way. That includes, says Reilly, a lot of “rolling around and jumping and screaming.”

Teachers prepared Gorell for role

His training in Cleveland, says Gorell, prepared him for the demands of the role, one that combines puppetry, clowning and athleticism.

“Every day I think, ‘I couldn’t have done this without Case,’ ” he says.

He credits his teachers for giving him the tools to land the challenging part and develop it, including the instruction he received from Ron Wilson, who heads up the CWRU/Play House program. In Wilson’s classes, he says, students investigate each part of the body and learn how the body tells a story to the audience.

“When I’m asked to do something with the puppet and/or with my body, I have a vocabulary that I developed over three years at Case.”

“It had been a while since I had seen ‘The Lion King,’ and I wasn’t sure which Disney bird Zazu was — if it was Gilbert Gottfried or Rowan Atkinson. They’re very different,” he says with a laugh. “I think the first time I did it, it was somewhere between the two — if you can imagine a love child of Rowan Atkinson and Gilbert Gottfried . . .” (For the record, Gottfried voiced Iago the parrot in Disney’s “Aladdin.”)

So what does the Wisconsin native bring to the part?

“At the moment, we’re discovering,” says Shrimpton. “I don’t want him to be a cookie cutter of the person who is now playing the role [the exiting Mark David Kaplan]. . . We guide and suggest, but ultimately, it is his choice. It’s his character. . .“Of course, there are guidelines. Zazu is the butler, he’s [like Anthony Hopkins’ Mr. Stevens in] ‘Remains of the Day.’ He’s been around forever, he’s running a house, that’s who he is. . . And, within those parameters Andrew makes his own choices.”

Research includes YouTube video

Gorell is one of nine people joining “The Lion King” family, and their new interpretations help keep the material fresh for longtime cast and crew members.

In addition to spending quality time in front of the mirror with Zazu, Gorell must also do what his director calls “homework” and watch hornbills in the wild. (Shrimpton, a classically trained dancer, used the same technique years ago when she studied real-world felines for her gig in “Cats” in London’s West End.)

Puppet master Reilly and Shrimpton work with actors like Gorell as they develop their inner critter. To stay sharp, Reilly likes to visit the zoo in whatever city he happens to be in while on tour. But Gorell’s favorite bit of research is a five-minute YouTube clip titled “African Hornbill loves baby geese” (tinyurl.com/ll7o54u).

As three fuzzy chicks waddle around a pen gobbling up bits of spinach and taking sips from — or a dip in — a water dish, a small, frenetic ringer for Zazu hops around and watches over them like a nervous nanny.

“The hornbill seems to take his job very seriously, observing and protecting the chicks,” Gorell notes. “Zazu takes his job very seriously, and he is a bit of a busybody, like this little guy.”

Gorell says that once he found the clip, “I could make a mental image of what this character does within the world of ‘The Lion King.’ ”

His other inspiration? The “Downton Abbey” series, particularly Carson the butler, the devoted, lifelong servant to the Crawley family. Beyond the physical resemblance, thanks to actor Jim Carter’s impressive beak, Zazu, like Carson, is “a little haughty,” says Gorell, but has a deep reverence for those he serves.

“He’s been the majordomo of the king for his entire life,” says Gorell. “He has a lot of respect for the king and his power and his strengths — but his strength is organization.” Zazu is also a living reliquary, a keeper of the traditions of the kingdom with an encyclopedic knowledge of its history.

“He’s a little pedantic, right? But obviously completely dedicated to the workings of this strange world that we create here.”

Though he couldn’t quite recall which actor provided the voice for the cartoon version of Zazu, Gorell will never forget the first time he saw “The Lion King” live.

It was 2004, and a friend had joined the New York cast at the New Amsterdam Theatre. Gorell took his family to see it.

The production opens with a breathtaking procession of exotic puppets and those spectacular human/animal hybrids.

“It was so beautiful, I burst into tears,” he says. “I couldn’t control myself. I had no idea why.” He left the theater thinking, “What just happened?”

Now he’s in the show that he “fell in love with at first sight,” a feeling he likens to going out with your first sweetheart years after she made your pulse race.

And he has Zazu to thank for the opportunity. “He’s definitely the star,” says Gorell. “He definitely gets first billing.”

As befits a celebrity, Zazu must be treated with “not just respect, but awe.” No throwing him carelessly backstage after the show, causing him to molt or bust one of those delicate gears in his head.

So, no taking Zazu out for a brewski after rehearsal?

“No!” Gorell says. “Zazu actually keeps me in check — he’s the one who says, ‘Are you sure you want that? Are you sure you can go out for a beer?’ ”

Suddenly, it’s not Gorell speaking, but that high-strung bird in those clipped, posh “Downton Abbey” tones.

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